Your BBB® wants you to protect yourself from criminal activity, fraud and unethical marketplace practices by adding a few resolutions to your list for 2016. Consumer fraud is perpetrated through email, websites, over the telephone and at the front door. Many of these schemes involve impostors pretending to be with a government agency, collection company, public utility, police department, court system or financial institution. In all of these schemes, the criminals use fear effectively to get us to divulge personal or financial information or send money through an unsecured payment system.

Top 10 list of resolutions to protect yourself in the New Year and beyond:

Resolution #1. Don’t be pushed into action – Just because someone looks or sounds official doesn’t mean they are. Criminals hope we will be frightened into letting down our guard, and that tactic often works. If you receive an unsolicited call or email that threatens legal action, ignore it. Number one on the Top ten scams of 2015 was the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) impostor ruse. The IRS and utilities, for example, will never call to demand payment or personal information by telephone or email. The agencies will contact you by mail, and will never threaten to have you arrested or attempt to shake you down for an immediate payment.

Resolution #2. Don’t be greedy – Many swindles are designed to appeal to our desire to get something for free. These include phony sweepstakes, prizes, gifts and “inheritances.”   These dupes commonly involve paying in advance to collect the money. This sort of activity also applies to websites with unrealistically low prices for top-shelf merchandise.

Resolution #3. Take control of your telephone – A significant portion of criminal consumer activity involves telephone calls.   Unfortunately, caller ID can no longer be considered reliable, so unless you recognize the telephone number, the best tactic is to let the call go to voice mail. In some cases, the caller may even have the last four digits of your Social Security Number or some other piece of personal data. That information does not mean the caller is legitimate.

Resolution # 4. Be proactive rather than reactive – Instead of responding to a charitable appeal over the telephone or at the front door, find a charity of your choice and make a donation through its website or by telephone, but only after verifying its contact information. Beware of charities whose names are similar to established organizations, but with a slight variation in spelling. Before making a donation, visit Give.org.

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